VO Studio Setup: Voiceover Recording Booth Upgrade Part 2

Once I decided to upgrade my voiceover recording booth, it made sense to act quickly. I didn’t want my audio quality to suffer, nor did I want to put off replacing material which was clearly nearing the end of its useful life. Back when I found this booth, it solved a lot of issues in my workflow. It provided consistency in my recordings and allowed me to keep gear ready to use.

However, as the aging foam of my booth continued to dry out and drop off in small chunks, I knew what I wanted to do: eliminate any of that open foam from my inside of the recording space. Which meant I had an opportunity to bust out the tools. 

Confession time: I really wanted to build up my own bass traps and acoustic panels. 

I’ve collected bass trap and acoustic panel construction videos and plans for years. There are quite a few bad ones out there, but definitely a couple of good ones. I’ve listened carefully to interviews and podcasts with acoustic designers. And I really, really wanted to obtain the materials, fire up the miter saw and create my own made-to-fit custom acoustic treatments to reduce reflections within my recording space. 

However, I had to admit all those bookmarks and shopping lists had remained dormant for way too long. As much as I wanted to craft those bits, actually finding the time would be challenging. Ongoing voiceover recording projects, studio consulting clients, and teaching remote classes meant that any window for tearing the booth apart would be slim. I realized that it would be better to rely on a solid source for my acoustic treatment. 

Solving Reflection Issues Inside a VO Booth

I’ve always liked the ATS Acoustics products. I’ve recommended them for client spaces, and heard consistently good results as they efficiently reduced reflections and provided the bass trapping we so vitally need in our VO recording spaces. ATS finish work is high quality, using open-weave fabric over decent absorptive material. With plenty of colors to choose from, I no longer had to work in a charcoal grey workspace. 

No More Foam

Since I’d be removing all of the existing foam – both the egg-crate foam stuck to the walls and the various LENRD bass traps which I’d positioned in opposing corners – I’d need to cover a decent amount of wall. Within any smaller space, I usually aim at around 80% of the surface area. My first concern would be the primary reflection points from my speaking position. Essentially, those are any surfaces on a direct line from the sound source. If I talked “into” an absorptive surface, there would be less sound bouncing around the room to deal with later. 

Since custom sizing can get a bit expensive, I wanted to work with the standard dimensions offered through the ATS site. Peeling back the booth foam in a couple key places so I could measure accurately, it turned out that the internal dimension of the booth was 46” which meant I’d save a few bucks and drop down to the 36” size panels. The existing foam was nearly 2” deep, so I decided I could bump up the thickness of the main panels to the 4” and only lose 2” of internal space. Smaller panels, but deeper material. Those would be mounted at head height. 

Augmenting that would be a couple of the ATS Bass Traps. While they look functionally the same as the panels, they are open to the back, and benefit from having an air gap so that both the front and back will collect and trap the lower frequencies. ATS builds to order, so I got that into the system and big boxes showed up about 8 days later. Stacking them inside the booth created an amazingly dead space – even more so since the foam was still in place. It was slightly disorienting to have so little acoustic reflection.

Next Step: How to Gain More Isolation in the VO Booth

The quest for acoustic treatment inside the booth was quite satisfactory. Now, I faced the tougher question: was there any way to improve the isolation of my single-walled, prefab booth from external sounds?

As mentioned in Part 1, the walls of my Vocalbooth tended to transmit external noises into the booth. It’s not a flaw as much as a feature. Any single-walled structure will tend to do this. When you take a large piece of wood and set it up vertically, it’s going to act a bit like a drum skin. When a sound hits that large, unsupported surface, it will resonate and transmit the sound through. Simply adhering light acoustic foam does little (if anything) to reduce acoustic transmission. 

I’ve used rigid insulation foam to do this in the past – it can reduce sound reasonably well, but because it’s usually placed inside of a wall, it looks a bit “unfinished”. It also has a hard, smooth surface, so will tend to reflect sound. I’d used that to isolate my first recording space from a refrigerator on the other side of a wall, but had put wall hangings on it to deaden the resulting reflections. Mass loaded vinyl is another oft-recommended isolation material, but that needs to be limp inside of a wall layer for maximum effect.

Sound tends to be reduced if it goes through different types of materials. The exterior of my booth has carpeting with fairly dense weave. The MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) has decent mass. If I could adhere something to the inside, that could help to deaden the wood itself. 

After a bit of searching and researching, I came across various types of panels which touted fairly dense weave, claiming both absorption and deadening while obtaining an NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient) “above .7” which is pretty good. They also provided a more finished look, since the ATS panels would not be completely covering the wall. 

Sound Deadening Layer For Your VO Booth

I went with these because they were slightly more economical, included adhesive squares, came in a neutral light tan color and most importantly – would arrive within a couple days. 

How many? More than you would think!

While 12 pieces per package and each piece 12 inches square sounds like a lot, when you start doing the math you realize that the inside of the a single 4′ x 7′ wall of the booth is 28 square feet. Which meant it would take a little more than two 12-packs per wall. Even though one of the walls had a window and the door was going to be dealt with separately, I still needed about 8 packages (96 square feet) of coverage. After triple checking my measurements and calculations and tapping the “Buy” button, I just needed to clear a couple of days so I could peel back the old material…

Next – Dealing with the Door, and Finish Work Takes Time…

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